“Because of the constitution, the country will always have a census,” he said in an interview Friday at his office in the bureau’s Suitland headquarters, already stripped of his personal belongings. “But how we do the census and surveys will have to change.”

Cost is a big reason. Even though it came in $1.9 billion under budget, the last census cost $13 billion, about $42 a head. The pricetag has doubled every decade since 1970.

So there's talk of relying more and more on private databases. At the basic level, there's something to be said for that. But once you get beyond household utilities and tax records, I'm curious where that trend leads to.

» Wash. Post: Baltimore puts out welcome mat for immigrants, hoping to stop population decline
There are actually a number of tenents to Baltimore's efforts. Not harrassing undocumented residents is one of them. If I were the scorecard-carrying type, I might bemoan this sort of coverage as "biased." Instead, it's just incomplete and a little lazy. There is a quote from a Baltimore elected who does begin to introduce some of the additional context, the reporter just ends the story there for all intents and purposes. The city of Baltimore has apparently been focusing on population for quite a while and the latest Census info didn't exactly do any wonders. Here's the Baltimore Sun's topic page for "population decline" for more context.

» NY Review of Books: Getting Away With It (Paul Krugman & Robin Wells)
Set aside for reading on Wednesday or any insomnia attack before then. I downloaded a preview of the Scheiber and Edsall books. Edsall's is a definite for continuing on with and I may opt for Chris Hayes' latest instead of Scheiber's. For his review, I'm merely hoping that Krugman is better suited for elaboration in a long-form take rather than his usual spotty analysis in his blog or column. That said, I wasn't much of a fan of his book, "The Conscience of a Liberal."

» Foreign Affairs: Confucius and the Ballot Box [$]
This looks interesting for a little dose of continuing education in Asian politics. So it goes into the Wednesday reading pile. I'm assuming this will relate more to the impact that a lack of democracy has to American foreign policy. But I'll be reading for some extra hints on any meaning for Asian voters (and more importantly, non-voters) here at home.

And on a non-political, non-current-affairs sort of note, I'll offer a sermon of choice ...

» Mars Hill Church: A Church That Believes in "We" and "Opt-In"
With a little bit of gratuitous back-patting over catching up on some Mars Hill podcasts, I happened to spin a few old sermons in order of their delivery. So now I'm on a kick to read through the book of Acts (and possibly restart this old habit), which this sermon is part of a series on. Sadly, I realized that my spotty record of downloading sermons finds me 7 downloads short of the 24-part series on Acts. So a small sacrifice of remuneration to the altar of archived podcasts must be given.

ADD-ON: One late entry via facebook discovery ...

» Texas Monthly: Why Johnny Can't Learn
The book under review definitely seems like a worthwhile read if I ever remember to pick up Ravitch's last one to read as a preview.

Below are the most over-populated and under-populated State Rep districts throughout Texas. Not surprisingly, they track with some of the known overall growth patterns: high growth in Collin County, north of Plano; high growth in the Katy area and northerwestern (Cypress) area of Harris County. The slow-growth area still being in the inner-city cores.

What's interesting here is that, among the redistricting arguments you will here is that future growth patterns are an allowable reason for population variation. Districts 70 and 132 started the decade pretty close to the maximum deviation for underpopulation, which really puts an exclamation point behind them being the top two most over-populated districts.

What's interesting, though, is that some of the slow-growth areas also started the decade underpopulated. In the case of District 22, that may have been because expanding the district out would have made it harder to maintain over 50% African-American population. As-is, that district cuts into Orange County, which is a pretty unusual county slice. But Anchia's District 103 nearly maxes out the under-represenation limit and would not have had any problem adding population while still staying close to the 66% VAP Hispanic population it started off with. In fact, only one of the listed under-populated districts started the decade off as over-populated.

On a sidenote, 28 districts are within the allowed +/-5% range for state population.

Yet another one to add to the "to-be-mapped" list. Bexar County's magic number is 10.23, so they have the unusual task of keeping the same number of seats (Travis County will also maintain their current level). And with that, there's still some pretty wild population swings that will have to be adjusted for. As I'm sure anyone who's familiar with the county knows, the north/northwestern part of the county grew like wildfire.

So here's what jumps out to me:

- Two majority-Anglo districts. The surprising part, though, is that both represent fairly slim majorities, yet each district has an outsized share of GOP vote within them. Again ... sometimes demographics alone don't tell the full story.

- The two most over-populated districts are right by each other. It could be interesting to see if that means there might be an opening for former State Rep. David Liebowitz to return in 2012. And, not surprisingly, the two most under-populated districts are side-by-side. One of those members is the Vice-Chair of the Redistricting Committee. It'll be interesting to see if that works in Villareal's favor, or if there's a clear divide within the committee like there was in 2001. I wouldn't expect it to be an excuse to pair the two incumbents, but you never know.

Usual caveat: as noted in the Harris and Dallas County version of this post, +/- is based on the countywide average for number of seats while the overall state map will require a +/- 5% in terms of population variation statewide.

Another one that I'll get around to mapping out later in the weekend. Dallas County's magic number is 14.1, so there's no path that I see to avoid them losing two seats. And with the exception of HD109, every district essentially has to grow a little to add population. Dallas should be a pretty clear cut case of watching the GOP devour one of their own, barring retirement by any of the members.

A couple of things jump out from the demographics:

- Linda Harper-Brown's current district is now much more evident as to why it's become so competitive. That 17% Asian population isn't going un-noticed, but I'm curious what the voter rolls suggest in the district. It's close to DFW airport and there's a sizable stewardessflight attendant population in the apartments nearby. How many of them are registered voters is a bigger question than anything else.

- Like Harris County, Dallas County has a "black-to-brown" problem with some over-extended African-American districts carrying a higher share of Hispanic voters now and with African-American populations under 40%.

- Comparing the demographics of HD102 and HD107 strikes me as interesting since the early voting results in 2010 had 102's Carol Kent being the lowest-running incumbent Dem and I figured that 107's Allen Vaught might hang on. In the end, Kent performed a mere point less than Vaught. But the demographics are a little more uphill in Vaught's 107. That may or may not be an indicator that he had a little better crossover support, it might not mean much of anything. But it's at least a interesting datapoint. Certainly worth watching to see what district (and what kind of district) Vaught falls in for 2012.

As noted in the Harris County version of this post, +/- is based on the countywide average for number of seats while the overall state map will require a +/- 5% in terms of population variation statewide.

I'll get around to mapping this out for a visual overview of the situation. But, for now, here's the math-heavy view of things. The demographics are interesting enough, but if you want to see whether districts need to shrink or expand, the +/- number is the key. I calculated the county population divided by 24 to get an average of 170,519.

A couple of caveats ... first, there's no telling if there might be some magic trick to allow Harris County to get 25 seats. I have a hard time seeing it, so I'm operating under the assumption that we get 24 for the sake of planning ahead. Second, the entire state map has to contain districts that are +/- 5% in terms of population variation which will be calculated against the statewide average - not the county average. That number is 167,637. So, at maximum, a district can contain 176,018 people and a minimum of 159,255. All that to say: I use the countywide average as a simple baseline, but it's not the magical number that the Justice Department will be looking at.

That aside, some of the highlights that jump out at me:
- Not one district in Harris County presently has a majority of African-American population. The decade started with four districts that had a bare majority and two that were between 45-50%. In fact, Harold Dutton and Garnet Coleman's districts are under 40% African-American. For all the critics of the VRA, I can't help but notice a positive in there. Of course, there's a point to be made that the share of African-American protected seats is inflated. Harris County is 18.4% African-American. Out of 24 seats, that would warrant 4.4 seats. Yet we have 6 African-American seats. Will the GOP lege look at that as an opportunity to put one of those seats on the cutting-room floor? There's a lot of interesting math at work in many of these districts, so I'll probably get around to a full blog post devoted solely to this topic.

- My district - HD137 - now has almost 64% Hispanic population. It was originally drawn to at 55% Hispanic. That almost evenly matches the decline in Anglo population. Throughout the county, 10 seats are majority-Hispanic. 5 others are plurality-Hispanic.

- Six districts now have over 10% Asian population in Harris County. More growth in the Asian population happened outside of city limits than within. Welcome to the new world of minority population diffusion!

The fact that Houston clocks in at 2.099M instead of 2.1M warrants some attention. I'd think we might go ahead and draw 11 districts anyways, but the fact that there's a differing datapoint may very well mean that any party who doesn't like the end product map will have something to argue in front of a judge regardless of which way we go. I'm spending more time in front of numbers than I am news ... hopefully there's a quick statement from Mayor Parker on which route we go.

As for Harris County, I'll be curious if the VAP numbers track with Hispanics being the plurality in the county. If so, I think it makes it very difficult to argue for three safe Anglo GOP seats and zero Hispanic opportunity seats. Either of the twoproposals I drafted strike me as being worth some consideration.

UPDATE: Via Council Member Ed Gonzalez, the city is proceeding with plans to add two new council seats despite the Census showing us a hair short of the 2.1M population count. Good to see that!

The Census puts out some prelim numbers while I await the raw data. As expected, growth tracks with the suburbs. Of more immediate political importance is the fact that the Harris County number for State Representative seats clocks in at 24.4126. I knew I should've bet Doc Murray on that! Unfortunately, it means we're now likely to lose a State House seat in Harris County. Dallas County's number is 14.1266 - as expected, they'll lose a seat. Tarrant County's number is 10.79 - as expected, they'll gain a seat.

One final map product before the 2010 numbers land in my lap. This is the "before" picture of the I35 Corridor, which is expected to have substantial population gains over the last decade. Zoom out for the bigger picture or scroll around for the other counties in the area.

As I get numbers together, I'll ultimately be looking at where population in each section grew (plus, I'm hoping to do a South Texas map completed over the weekend) and what demographic groups accounted for that change. Because, ya know ... that's how I roll.

- If you prefer a bigger map, here ya go.
- If you want to look at the file in Google Earth, here's that.